The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) took potshots at the BJP and its Enforcement Directorate (ED) following the raids conducted by the agency at the residences of the Chief Minister’s Personal Secretary (PS) and AAP Rajya Sabha MP Shri ND Gupta, on Tuesday.
The BJP wants to attack the ‘AAP’ through the ED by targeting the ‘Kejriwal Model of Governance’, the public understands this game, said AAP’s Chief Spokesperson Priyanka Kakkar. She questioned whether the ED will now raid someone’s house without stating a reason and whether it will leave without explaining the reason behind the raid? Ultimately, what is happening in this country? The ED did not give a reason for raiding the CM’s PS and AAP MP Shri ND Gupta’s house on Tuesday. This is completely hooliganism.
Meanwhile, AAP’s senior leader Jasmine Shah said that there is a protocol for raiding. First, a file is prepared, and raids are conducted with planning. But the lack of protocol was evident in Tuesday’s raid. It is clear that the ED is only deciding which opposition leader to target and whom to raid based on the whims and fancies of its political masters. The purpose of this raid was merely to create a sensation through the media.
AAP’s Chief Spokesperson Priyanka Kakkar, speaking at a press conference at the party headquarters on Wednesday, said that there needs to be a discussion on policies for positive politics, efforts to increase camaraderie among people, and attempts to improve people’s standard of living. “In this series, the Aam Aadmi Party has presented the ‘Kejriwal Model of Governance’ to the country. Under this model, people have been provided with free education, healthcare, electricity, and water. Several schemes have been implemented, such as free bus rides for women for their empowerment and free pilgrimage trips for the elderly. Along with this, a budget for profits has also been provided,” she added.
The Chief Spokesperson of AAP mentioned that the healthcare and education system of the Kejriwal government is so renowned that people from all over the country and abroad come here for treatment and education. However, the BJP has not been able to establish such a model in any of its states. The budget of every BJP-ruled state remains in deficit. People have now started demanding that Shri Arvind Kejriwal come to their states and provide facilities under the ‘Kejriwal Model of Governance’. People have realized that the AAP is a party of educated people. People join the party to advance Shri Arvind Kejriwal’s vision, leaving aside their business and jobs. Unlike the BJP, the AAP does not recruit goons for political protection nor do people join the AAP to earn money. The BJP is troubled by this fact. Therefore, it has put the ED behind the ‘AAP’.
“The purpose of putting the ED behind the AAP is to diminish Shri Arvind Kejriwal’s popularity, defame him, and attack his model. We have been observing for the past 2 years that no evidence has been found in the alleged liquor scam. It has recently been revealed that the ED’s case is so weak that they have now started tampering with the evidence. Therefore, on February 5, Minister Atishi announced to expose the ED through a press conference on February 6. The ED became fearful and reached the residences of Delhi CM Shri Arvind Kejriwal’s PS Vibhav Kumar and party treasurer and Rajya Sabha MP ND Gupta. During this time, the raid lasted for 16 hours at Vibhav Kumar’s house and 18 hours at ND Gupta’s house, but the ED could not explain under which case and FIR the raids were conducted,” she added.
“During the ED raid, neither any questioning was done nor any search was conducted. They just downloaded emails and took away 3 mobile phones. What is happening in this country? This is completely hooliganism. You won’t even tell which case is ongoing and under which case investigation is being conducted. The ED will just raid anyone’s house without any reason like this. This was done just to create an impression that raids were conducted for 16-18 hours and kept running in the media all day. Today, no media is showing that nothing was found. The BJP is playing the entire perception game,” the Chief AAP Spokesperson concluded.
AAP’s senior leader Jasmine Shah has said that the Enforcement Directorate lacks professionalism and does not follow any protocol before conducting raids at a person’s place. All this is being done at the will of their political masters as is evident from the ED raids yesterday and the visit of Crime Branch teams at the residence of Chief Minister on Saturday and Delhi Cabinet minister on Sunday in full media glare, he added.
Referring to the raids conducted at the residences of PA to Chief Minister Shri Arvind Kejriwal and Member of Parliament and AAP treasurer Shri ND Gupta yesterday, Jasmine Shah said, “Raids were conducted yesterday at the house of our senior MP ND Gupta and the house of Vibhav Kumar, PA to Chief Minister and National Convenor of Aam Aadmi Party Arvind Kejriwal. These raids continued for nearly 16 hours. But nothing was recovered _ no gold, no cash.”
Jasmine Shah said the persons whose houses were raided were never told about the case in which the raid was conducted. “There were 23 ED officers who came to the house of Shri Vibhav Kumar. The ED team kept sitting in the living room of Shri Vibhav Kumar and never bothered to search the house. No hard work, no inquiry was done. All that was seized from Shri Bibhav Kumar’s house were the data of his two gmail accounts and three mobile phones belonging to him and his family members. No cash, no jewelry, no documents were seized. And even after 16 hours of raid, the ED officials were not able to tell the person whose house was raided that in which case the raid had been conducted,” he said.
Jasmine Shah said when the AAP lawyers asked the ED officials in which connection the raids were being conducted, the ED officials were clueless. “Actually, it was not a raid at all. When a person is raided a probe agency has to follow a protocol. All this was being done to create sensation in the media all through the day that raids were being conducted on AAP functionaries,” he said.
He said that in fact, the ED was so unprofessional that the team first went to Shri Vibhav Kumar’s old residence and when they came to know that he does not live there any longer, they reached his present address. “Is this the way a probe agency functions? They have a protocol. All these agencies have a protocol. When you go to raid someone’s house, a file is created. It is written in the file that what intelligence inputs did we get, where did we get it from, why should we conduct a raid. Then higher officials put their signatures on the file, complete planning takes place and then the raid takes place. The ED officers don’t even know why they are raiding a person,” he said.
The AAP leader also gave a reference of the visit of the Crime Branch officials of Delhi Police at the residence of the chief minister Shri Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday. He said a similar drama took place in the presence of the media for about five hours when the ACP of the Crime Branch was adamant on handing over a letter to the chief minister personally. “We asked him is there any such section of law that mandates the letter to be given the chief minister personally. You wish the Chief Minister to leave all the work of Delhi and come to receive the notice. The Crime Branch officials kept on hanging around for five hours in front of the media. It was not even an FIR, or a preliminary inquiry or a summon. It was just a notice, with no mention of any section of IPC, CrPC or any other Act,” said Shri Jasmine Shah.
He stated that it is very sad that such professional agencies are being misused by the Centre ruled BJP. “Such honest and diligent officers of these agencies who would have loved to fight terrorism, control narcotics abuse, solve murder and prevent kidnapping are being used to destroy the opposition in the country,” he said.
Shri Jasmine Shah said that why these agencies have been unleashed after the AAP leaders is that they want to tarnish the image of Shri Arvind Kejriwal and crush him. “The BJP and Modi ji know it well that Shri Arvind Kejriwal is the only formidable challenge to them in the country. They know that only Shri Kejriwal can fight them with his good work, world-class government schools and quality government hospitals. They can’t match that and that is why they want to crush Shri Arvind Kejriwal,” he said.
